


Paying Rent

by ya_girl_Lorelai



Category: LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works, Lovecraft - Fandom, Original - Fandom, ohio - Fandom
Genre: Blow Job, Breeding, College, Death, Drama, Drug Dealing, Drugs, Egg Laying, Eggs, Eldritch, Eldritch Abominations, F/M, Flooding, Forced Pregnancy, Goth - Freeform, Gross, Heroic, Horror, Insanity, LSD, M/M, Mental Illness, Other, Paranoia, Parents, Porn With Plot, Rape, Romance, School, Sex, Sounding, Tentacle Porn, Tentacle Rape, Tentacles, University, Weird, bipolar, horrors, lovecraft, meth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-19 05:43:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 15,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14867739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ya_girl_Lorelai/pseuds/ya_girl_Lorelai
Summary: Maxim Chernov, a math student at a university, meets a mysterious goth girl and falls in love. Trying to move her out of her parents' house, he turns to a high school acquaintance in order to sell drugs.  Things get out of hand when Maxim accidentally consumes a heroic dose of LSD.





	1. Chapter 1

“What do you MEAN the math room is closed?” Maxim Chernov asked a cleaning woman who was barring the entrance to the room he usually worked in. He was frustrated. He always worked in that room with the other kids from his math class. They had agreed to meet there a few hours before. His phone was dead, so he couldn’t check his texts to see where they would be meeting instead. Not being able to work in there would be a serious problem.

“There was a spill,” the woman said, not committed to giving the yellow boy in front of her a better answer, “and you’ll just have to find somewhere else to work.” She had cleaned for the University of West Valence for over a decade, and the entitlement of the privileged kids who attended still managed to shock her. As if she wanted to clean the massive spill in the middle of the room. 

“Alright, sorry.” Maxim felt slightly bad for being short with the woman. It wasn’t her fault that his plans were ruined. He exhaled sharply and resolved to just go work somewhere else. Since it was eleven at night, the building would soon be locked. He couldn’t afford to leave as he wouldn’t be able to get back inside. He turned and began to walk down the hall, towards the chem building. He was going to go study in the psych room. Although it was inferior to the math lounge that he generally used, it was still familiar. He would be able to bust through a little of his combinatorics before heading home. 

Pushing open the glass door to the psych room, Maxim looked around for his math friends. They were nowhere to be found. He set all his books down on an empty table in the center of the room and began to work. The room was nearly dead silent, and at first he thought that he was the only person inside. Slowly, he began to notice background noises. There was someone else there with him. They were typing away feverishly in a shadowy corner of the room. He glanced around, hoping maybe it was the math girl who he shared a small flame with. She was no longer in any of his classes, and as a result they hadn’t been talking as much.

Maxim approached the corner of the room. His face fell for a second, the person had dark hair and thus couldn’t be math girl. He still proceeded forward, and found that the figure was a girl with dark hair, several piercings, and all black clothes. He sat down next to her, “you don’t mind if I sit here, do you?”

She smiled playfully, said she didn’t mind and went back to typing quickly. Maxim and the girl worked in silence for about an hour, occasionally stealing glances at one another. Both noticed what the other was doing, and both were working to hide their smiles from one another. The girl suddenly closed her laptop, and began to put her stuff in her bags. 

“What’s your name?” She asked him.

Putting on a thick Russian accent, Maxim responded with it. “And yours?”

“Loren Palmer.” She responded. 

“Let me get your number,” Maxim asked, hopefully. He wrote it down as she said it slowly, and said that he would text her when he was done with his homework. He watched her leave the psychology building, he was unable to help noticing how nice her ass looked in her short black skirt, with her white legs mostly covered by striped knee high socks. He rushed to finish all of his homework, hoping that he would be able to text her before she went to bed. 

Maxim worked quickly, finished his last proof, and then stepped out of the building to find his car waiting for him on the street. He unlocked it, and found that his charger was in his car all along. He plugged the cord into the USB port and began charging his phone. He was thankful as now he wouldn’t have to wait for it to charge when he made it to his house on the east end of West Valence. 

Maxim sped all the way home, not even noticing that he was going over the speed limit. Fortunately, he didn’t encounter any police on his twenty minute commute from school to home. Maybe luck was on his side that day? He certainly deserved a good break after having to drop out of the highest math track and getting his last car totalled. Things were finally turning up for him.

Finally, Maxim pulled into his driveway and threw his car into park. His phone had charged up to eight percent. He grabbed his backpack and stepped out of his vehicle, into the uncharacteristically balmy January night. He unlocked the door to his house as quietly as possible. He was allowed to be out as late as he wanted now on account of college. With that said, he still liked to be considerate towards his father who probably had to work early the next day. He grabbed some food from his kitchen, and then went up the stairs to his room. He plugged his phone in to charge more, and changed into lighter night clothes. 

He searched his notes for the phone number that Loren had given to him. He found it, and entered it into his contacts list. Before texting her, however, he opened the messenger app. He had to tell everyone about his encounter. He found that Celestino Espinoza was talking about something irrelevant about his interview. 

Celestino Espinoza: it’s tomorrow and i’m so excited. gotta write out responses to these  
Marina Davis: want me to help?  
Celestino Espinoza: ill let you know if i need any. thanks tho.  
Marina Davis: yeah, course! dad said hell talk to you about it tomorrow morning  
Celestino Espinoza: ooh daddy Davis  
Maxim Chernov: Guys  
Maxim Chernov: the most amazing thing just happened  
Maxim Chernov: this hot goth girl just gave me her number  
Maxim Chernov: don't let me fuck it up

Maxim closed the app before anyone could respond to his message. He’d check their advice in the morning. Now it was finally time to text the girl he had met. He messaged her asking what she was typing about so furiously earlier, and awaited a response. He took a shower while he waited, as he hadn’t masturbated in at least a week. There was little need to when he was getting his dick sucked by physics girl every day. He did miss his own touch, however. 

After showering and jerking off to the thought of Loren riding him, he stepped out into the steamy bathroom and jumped as he saw something dark at the window. After his heart rate slowed slightly, he took a second look out and saw that the surprising darkness was just the shadow cast from a branch. Why was he so on edge? He dried off and returned to his bedroom, seeing that goth girl had sent him a message ten minutes before. She mentioned she was writing a paper on how LSD affected the brain. It was three in the morning, and Maxim had a class at eleven. He could afford talking to Loren for a little while longer before he would need to sleep. 

Maxim Chernov: Oh man, I would never do LSD.  
Loren Palmer: Why’s that? It seems like such a beautiful drug.  
Maxim Chernov: Well, I’ve done a bunch of other stuff but my math professor said to never do lsd because itll ruin my ability to do math.  
Loren Palmer: Oh, that’s lame. I still haven’t done it. I don’t know where I would get it from.  
Maxim Chernov: i know a few people. Havent talked to them in a while tho. Are you a psych major?  
Loren Palmer: Psych and sociology. I really want to help less privileged children get the support they need.  
Maxim Chernov: that’s really noble  
Loren Palmer: i hope so! I wish i had had someone there for me as a kid.

And although they had just met, Maxim and Loren spent the night texting their life stories to one another. Maxim knew he already had a small crush on the girl who he had only met a few hours before. He had to meet her again, and soon. He offered to take her out for dinner the next day. She gladly accepted. Once again, he marvelled at his luck. Last week had been horrible, so had last semester. Maybe things were going to get better. Maybe. It was six in the morning by that point, and he would only have four hours to sleep. He told Loren good night, and that he would see her later on. They would be going to a nice sushi place on LaBelle street that he had been to with many girls before.


	2. Chapter 2

Maxim woke up to find that he had accidentally overslept his first class. His mother was knocking on his locked door, demanding in Russian that he get up and to stop being so lazy. He gave a short apology back, and threw on a math shirt and a pair of cargo shorts. He grabbed his backpack, careful not to neglect his charger a second time, and was ready for school. He drove into downtown West Valence and parked his car, paying just enough to last till five when the parking workers stopped actively looking for illegally parked cars. His date was in four hours, and he resolved to do some homework until that hour approached. 

For the second day in a row, Maxim managed to get through all the homework he needed to do. He was on fire. He looked at the clock. His date started in ten minutes. He was a fifteen minute walk from the sushi restaurant. He cursed, as he was going to be late for his very first date with the hottest and most interesting girl he had met in a long time. Maxim panicked, packing his bag as quickly as possible. He crammed his pencils in the backpack, folded his laptop charger, and shoved his books inside. Roughly zipping it up, he threw the bag onto his back and ran out the door of the building he had been working in. He lightly jogged towards LaBelle, hoping to be as on time as he could be.

Maxim finally made it to the sushi place, only two minutes late. He was panting and stood outside for a second waiting for his breathing to calm slightly. He wiped a small amount of sweat from his brow, thankful that it wasn’t summer. When Maxim felt he could present as more dignified than someone who had just ran over a half a mile, he opened the door and saw that Loren was already seating, adjusting her glasses in the darkness while reading the menu. She put it down just as he took his seat across from her. 

“Hey,” he said cooly. She responded with a similarly cool “hey”, adding a small and casual smile to the end of it. “Sorry for being late.”

“Time is a social construct.” She smiled at him again. At that moment, a waitress came to their table and asked for their orders. Maxim and Loren said what they wanted, and then Maxim told the woman that it would be on one bill. The waitress turned and returned to the kitchen. 

“What did you work on today?” Maxim asked the girl. “Are you still working on the LSD paper for your psych class?”

“Oh, that’s not for class.” She said, “It’s a side project I’m working on for fun.”

“So you’re passionate about psychedelics?”

“All drugs, really.”

“Oh man, want to get high sometime?” Maxim asked.

“Scheduling the second date already?” Loren asked, faux surprise laced in her voice. “But to actually answer your question, I’d love to.” As she said that, she placed her hand on Maxim’s outer thigh under the table. His leg tensed and then relaxed, he hadn’t expected her to break the touch barrier so soon. She proceeded to tell him all about her papers on drugs and how she had even gotten one published. She mentioned how she hadn’t had many chances to do anything, but that her original obsession had happened on account of her conservative school’s opinions on them. They talked about illicit substances up till their food arrived. The conversation was so interesting to Maxim, though she had been unable to sway his initial hesitance to do LSD.

They ate, and then talked a little while longer before Loren revealed that she had a meeting to get to. Maxim and her resolved to go and smoke at the park on Saturday provided that the weather remained fairly nice. They exited the sushi place and walked together back to the math building, where Maxim and Loren said their goodbye’s. To Maxim’s astonishment, Loren grabbed his face and kissed him passionately before she waved to him and parted. Shocked, blushing, and grinning Maxim turned away and began walking back to the street where he had parked his car just a few hours before. He had a throbbing erection that was pressing painfully against his boxer shorts. He definitely had a crush. He couldn’t wait to see her again.


	3. Chapter 3

Saturday took forever to roll around. Maxim was anxious for his chance to see Loren again. They had been texting nearly constantly, but she was out of West Valence for Thursday and Friday, so they couldn’t see each other any sooner. Finally, the weekend arrived and he was busy cleaning his pipe for them to smoke out of. He normally didn’t care if it were a little dirty, as he wasn’t especially trying to impress anyone he was smoking with. Loren was different. They had only been talking for a few days but Maxim was in love. This was the woman who was going to have his kids. He was thinking about her near constantly. 

He put all of his weed paraphernalia in his bag and stepped out of his car, having been sitting in the parking lot for over an hour. He didn’t want to be a second late to a second date with her. He saw headlights approach in the darkness. They blinded him as they passed, but he could make out her silhouette inside the vehicle. She parked next to his car and joined him out on the lot. The weather was even nicer than it had been when they went to get sushi, and the moon outside provided some natural light that gave everything a silver lining. Maxim marvelled at Loren, appreciating the way the moonlight lit her glasses up. She brushed a lock of hair out of her face, and started walking towards the park. Maxim followed, fumbling to grab her small hand in the dark.

“How was your day?” He asked, opening with a light topic of conversation. 

“Kind of shitty,” she said. She started talking about how it was really difficult for her to live at home with her parents.

“You live at home too?” Maxim asked. “I’ve only met three other people who live with their parents.”

“Yeah, it’s a bit of a commute from Cheri but at least I’m saving money,” she said, sounding somewhat dejecting. “I’m looking to move out somewhat soon.”

“Me as well!” Maxim saw his chance, “I know this is really sudden, but would you want to move in with me?” 

“Where are we going to get the money?” She asked, “I mean I would love to I just don’t know how it would end up working out. I don’t have a job.”

Maxim started to explain how he was a real man, and that he would be able to take care of her. He would figure it all out. She giggled in response to all of this. 

“How about we both get a job or something, and then we can move out. We need money, don’t we?”

“Well I’ve been thinking about that. You said you wanted to do LSD, right? Do any of your friends?”

“Yeah, a lot of the psychology and sociology kids are interested.” She said. 

“What if I said I knew someone who could sell to them?”

“I would be interested.” She said. “Who sells?”

“There’s this guy I knew from high school, he has like everything. I think it wouldn’t be too hard to break into the drug market here. There seem to be a lot of kids here who want to do drugs but aren’t sure how to get them.”

“Could we sell enough acid to get an apartment?” She asked, sounding unsure. 

“Well we might need to work too, but it could be a start.”

The smoked for a bit in silence. Both were thinking over Maxim’s suggestion. He could think of a good twenty kids in the math department alone that wanted to score some adderall or some molly or something else. LSD wasn’t particularly popular with math kids but it seemed to be the drug of choice in the psychology department, if Loren’s testimony was to be trusted. 

After they finished the weed they had brought, Maxim pulled out a cigarette and lit one up. Using the butt of his cigarette, he lit another and passed it to the gorgeous goth girl next to him. They stood together, watching the river flow past them, the moon lighting up facets of the moving water in the darkness. It was such an aesthetic night. The city above them was lit up enough to look lovely in the distance but not such that the light produced by the buildings poisoned the nature that they were in the middle of. 

There was about ten minutes of comfortable conversation, before Loren changed the topic from moving out and dealing drugs. “Do you like art?” She asked. 

“I don’t think about it a whole lot, but I can appreciate some of it.” In truth, Maxim didn’t really care about art to any degree, but Loren asking probably meant that she did care. He didn’t want to seem disinterested in anything she liked, but he didn’t want to sound like he knew anything about it in case she quizzed him on it. 

“That’s good, I draw a lot.” She said. 

“Draw me.” Maxim asked, and then tried playing it off as a joke. He didn’t want to make any demands of her just yet, scared that she would be put off if he asked for anything. 

“Already have,” she said. 

“Let me see.”

“Soon, I’ve got a few small things left I need to fix.”

“What do you usually draw?” He asked.

“A lot of metropolitan scenes. I love the city. Recently, though, I’ve been in an art class about drawing the surreal and grotesque. So I haven’t had a whole lot of energy for anything else.”

“Right.”

“Right now, we’re doing Lovecraft.”

“He’s the one with all the eldritch horrors, right? Sounds spooky.”

“Aha, a little.” She said. “Would you like to see some of it?”

“Anything you want,” Maxim was easily scared by disgusting imagery but he wasn't going to deny Loren anything. She pulled a notebook out of her bag, and flipped open to the middle. There were smudges of pencil and charcoal all over the periphery of the page. The center was dominated by a disgusting creature that Maxim could only faintly make out by the light of the moon and his half smoked cigarette. She pulled out her phone, and used the flashlight to illuminate the drawing in the middle. Maxim wished that she hadn’t. 

The creature in the middle of the page looked almost like a human. All of its body was black. It had long, spindly limbs, fins, and even blacker eyes. There was a jagged mouth apparent, with its gaping hole looking even more black than its body. It was contorted against a brick wall, hovering menacingly over an unaware woman on the street. Maxim couldn’t hide his slight shiver. Loren noticed and giggled, closing the notebook. “Too much?” she asked. 

“You’re really good. Like, really really good. But. It’s kinda scary.”

“Good!” She said. “Sorry to spook you, though. I’ll show you something nicer sometime.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” Maxim said, trying to sound engaged in her work. The conversation proceeded to their other interests, and they talked for another hour before they decided they were bother sufficiently sober to drive. Maxim and Loren made their way through the winding paths along the valleys of the park near their college until they found a set of stairs that would take them back to their University. On the way up, Maxim saw a bench and stopped for a second. He playfully grabbed Loren and took her to the bench. They started passionately making out, before Loren pulled at Maxim’s zipper, trying to access his trapped erection. 

She took him in her mouth and began to suck him off. Maxim smiled up at the sky. Things couldn’t be going much better. He let the process go on as long as he felt comfortable, and then finished in her mouth. They made out a little more, and then finally returned to their cars. 

Once they had returned to their houses, they texted a little more before Loren said that she had to go to bed. At that point, Maxim had to get to business. He and Loren would be moving in together, and for that he would need a little help. He opened the texting app on his phone, found Aiden Vah’s number, and then sent him a message for the first time in months.

Maxim Chernov: Hey man, how’ve you been?


	4. Chapter 4

Aiden Vah sat across from Maxim, on his bed. He wouldn’t stop calling himself Erick Van-something-or-other. Maxim hadn’t quite caught the last name, though it had been said about seven times, and he wasn’t about to ask about it an eighth. Aiden was smoking meth out of a bubble, saying it would take the edge off, offering the pipe of Maxim. Maxim wasn’t there to do drugs, however. He was there to help other people do drugs. 

“Aiden, I need your help.” Maxim said, putting a small amount of pleading in his voice. Maybe Aiden would feel bad for him and actually do something with him. 

“Of course, of course. Everyone only hits me up when they need help.” Aiden had conjured a lit cigarette from somewhere, and offered one to Maxim. “It’s ok, though. I’m happy to help my friends.” He put a twitchy arm around the anxious Russian boy. “Tell Erick what you need.”

“I met this goth girl at school.”

“Is she hot?”

“Very.”

“Oooh, tell me more.”

Maxim launched into the story, telling Aiden everything. Aiden nodded and offered encouraging interjections as Maxim recounted the story of Loren. “So what I’m saying is, could you help me order LSD and a few other things to sell at school. I’ll give you a cut.”

“Ooooh, Maxim wants to run missions.” Aiden got up, and began to rummage through a drawer. “I think I could help, but. I don’t order most drugs anymore.”

“What? You’re doing meth right now.” 

“I made it.”

“What? I didn’t know you knew chemistry.”

“It’s not exactly hard. Anyways, I found out my last vendor was lying to me. I tested my last shipment of acid and found out that it was a research chemical. I’ve been on edge ever since. I only trust what I make.”

“Oh. Well. Could we make something together?”

“If you want. I have the ingredients already. We could make some tonight.”

“That would be really good. I need to get the apartment set up as soon as possible.” As Aiden was pulling materials out from the drawers near his computer, his phone began to ring. He cursed, and picked up. He had a quick conversation with someone and then hung up, immediately putting away what he had been taking out. 

“I’m sorry but this is going to have to wait. Please, go.” Aiden suddenly ushered Maxim out of his room, and out the door. He walked Maxim to his car, and then went back into his house. Disappointed, Maxim returned home after texting Aiden to ask when they could meet up again. 

 

Nothing particularly eventful happened over the course of the next week. Maxim and Loren went of a few dates, Maxim texted Aiden a little, and he failed a math quiz. It wasn’t a bad week but the anticipation of making LSD with Aiden made him on anxious. Every small annoyance was suddenly a big deal. The thai and sushi he was eating wasn’t as good as usual. His commute home seemed more choked with traffic. His grades were constantly on the forefront of his mind, as was moving out. This prompted an argument with his father where Loren and the present living arrangements were discussed. His father had actually laughed in his face when he had said he was moving out very soon. Maxim was so angry, felt so emasculated. You’ll see. He thought about his father. 

Finally, the next Saturday that he and Aiden had agreed to meet on rolled around. Maxim left the building he had been studying in and his math study group to find his car on the street. A parking ticket was sitting on his windshield. He sighed. Of course. He sometimes got away with illegal parking but he supposed that this just wasn’t one of those days. Before leaving the curb of the road, he signed onto university wifi and paid his ticket over the site provided on the back. He would make up the money soon enough. Ten dollars couldn’t put him back by that much. 

Maxim got onto the highway and began heading east towards Aiden’s neighborhood. He would have to get onto a different highway before he could reach Aiden’s house. He was on edge for the entire drive. It didn’t help that it was rush hour, and people were constantly stopping, starting, accelerating, just to stop again immediately after that sequence. Maxim was contemplating busting his brains out on his steering wheel before he managed to turn onto Aiden’s exit and head towards the small, poor neighborhood the shifty Asian boy lived at. He parked his car right next to Aiden’s white Nissan truck and went to the door. He knocked and then waited for someone to come to it. 

Eventually, Aiden met him at the door. Aiden wasn’t wearing his usual billion layers of gray clothing. This time, he had on a fluffy blue robe that could have been from a porno, and was wearing safety goggles. He had on dress shoes that contrasted horribly with the rest of his ensemble. “Come in, come in!” Aiden told Maxim, and then darted around the corner and out of sight. Maxim followed slowly behind, briefly considering taking his shoes off at the door before deciding he didn’t want the residue of Aiden’s spit and drug production to coat his socks. He followed Aiden down the stairs and into his room.


	5. Chapter 5

The inside of Aiden’s room looked completely different from the last time that Maxim had been there. Large, white sheets covered the entire floor of the room. His desk, dressers, stacks of books, and bed were protected from drippage. This made it awkward to navigated the room as it was clear that anything on the floor before the sheets had been put down was still there. Maxim walked carefully towards where Aiden was pulling things out of a case. 

“Are these the ingredients for LSD?” Maxim asked. 

“No, they’re supplies for making cookies.” Aiden said, sarcastically. The asian boy grinned suddenly, and then in a very animated tone explained how they were going to make the LSD. Most of the conversation went over Maxim’s head, but he nodded along anyways. “Don’t worry if you didn’t catch all that, I love sharing my knowledge. I will walk you through it.” As soon as he finished saying that, Aiden grabbed Maxim’s ass. Maxim jumped a little, but tried to play it off cool. Aiden winked and went back to clawing through his box of chemicals. He pulled four vials out, a bunsen burner, along with some tweezers and some powder. 

Aiden set everything out, and named each of them off to Maxim. Aiden grabbed some safety goggles and handed them off. He then began to give Maxim instructions as to what to do with each of the substances. 

The process for making LSD ended up taking the two boys about three hours. There were a few scary moments, like when Maxim almost spilled one of the more expensive chemicals when Aiden tried to convince him to do some meth. Or when Aiden jokingly tried to talk Maxim into drinking a really toxic chemical. 

The finished product bubbled where it sat atop the bunsen burner. Aiden smiled, satisfied. “I have some blotter, let me go get it.” Aiden exited the room. Maxim thought then about his life choices up until that point. He had never thought he would have to resort to doing illegal things to make money, but he was strangely proud of himself for the work he had put in to making LSD. It was an experience he would be able to tell his friends and grandkids. He wasn’t given long to think. Aiden strolled into the room, with a bunch of rainbow paper in one hand and a handful of pills in the other. He popped all of them at once.

“What were those?” Maxim asked. 

“Xanax, helps me with the mania.”

“Oh,” Maxim said, and averted his eyes. Aiden settled down besides him and placed the papers he was holding on top of the sheet that covered the floor. The sheet was covered in psychedelic designs and colors. It was a little hard to look at, there was so much going on. Aiden grabbed the LSD off the bunsen burner, and then dropped it, cursing. The hot liquid spilled out and covered both of the boys. Maxim’s jaw dropped. 

“Dude, what the fuck???” Maxim shouted. “How much LSD was that?”

“Uh,” Aiden was giggling. The xanax was doing its job. “I would say each of us took... a triple heroic dose.”

“You can’t do math anymore if you do acid. Aiden, you’ve ruined my life!” 

“Relax, you’re just going to have to go with it.”

“How can I relax, I’ve never done a serious drug before. My math professor says you can’t do pure math if you take acid, it fucks your brain up. What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Loosen up a little. Math is kinda gay anyways.”

“Is there any way to undo it?”

“Uh,” Aiden said. Before Aiden could start saying what he had planned to say, Maxim cut in again. He was starting to panic. 

“How long is it going to take to feel this?”

“With how much we took? Maybe twenty minutes or so. If you freak out, you’re going to have an awful trip. You gotta just go with it. Loosen up.”

Normally, Maxim would have made a joke about “loosen my asshole daddy”, but he was in a state of absolute panic. Aiden either wasn’t grasping or didn’t care that his academic career might very well be over because of Aiden’s carelessness. He assumed it was more likely the former than the latter. Aiden really only cared about himself. In addition to his school stress, Maxim thought about how it was going to affect his relationship with Loren. If he couldn’t stay in school on account of losing his ability to do math, he would lose her too. Additionally, he would have to find some other way of making money than making drugs with Aiden. What a stupid idea that had been. He bitterly regretted not listening to Jared and just avoiding Elon and Aiden. 

“Just roll with it.” And as Aiden said that, Maxim’s field of vision began to warp. There was nothing drastic at first, the visuals were rather tame. The walls began to breathe. The patterns on the ceiling began to ripple together. He felt like he was about to take off. The trip was starting. Maxim literally could not stop thinking about what was going to happen with his schooling. He knew from Marina that thought loops on acid could be really bad, especially if one had a tendency to worry about things. Unfortunately, that was going to be the case for him. His thought processes were accelerating, and he was mentally going through how his life was going to go when he dropped out of school. He could have almost started crying, for the fear he was experiencing. He felt so very lonely. No one could understand the pain he was going through. Why the fuck did he go to Aiden? What a reckless choice. This was not the first time he had been given drugs by the chaotic evil boy without his consent. If he survived what was about to happen to him, he was going to make better choices. He was going to spend time with more wholesome people. He wasn’t going to make illicit substances in the basement of a meth dealer. He was going to just have to hope his math abilities would continue to be ok.

Maxim was desperately trying to hang on to any thought that could make him feel better about the situation he was in. He was bargaining with fate. Like, maybe his professor was wrong. Or maybe it was just chronic use of drugs that hurt one’s abilities and doing it once wouldn’t be that big of a deal. He thought about how Alice said that nothing had changed on her end after she had done it. Or how Marina had actually done better in calculus after trying the drug. But that was calculus - not real math. No, the testimony of CS people meant nothing. But he needed to be ok. He needed to be ok. He had to be ok. He was so scared. Maxim was scared. He was trying to fight the force of his own academic anxiety and failing entirely. The drug coursing through his brain was trapping him in his own fears. The visuals were picking up. Maxim had a growing sense of unease. He felt so alone.


	6. Chapter 6

Maxim Chernov was suddenly horribly aware of how alone in existence he was. He could sense around him for millions of miles, and there nothing was there but him. He was completely isolated in the universe. Above him, nothing. Below him, nothing. In any compass direction. Nothing. Nothing but him and his horrid anxiety. Nothing was knowable to Maxim in that moment, except for his existential horror. The universe was a disgusting and barren place. Where once he had seen beauty in nature and in life, he saw nothingness. A hollow wasteland of things he could never understand. Suddenly, he knew that life was an illusion and the things he experienced on the day to day were just things his mind invented to keep him abstracted away from the true horror that was being alive. LSD had ripped that illusion away, and he was experiencing now the truth. Maxim closed his eyes to better feel the true darkness that he had never before felt, and suddenly... sensed something on the periphery of existence. He had thought he was alone, but this was much worse. There was something with him on the edge of his being.

Aiden, on the other hand, was having quite the opposite experience. Maybe it was because he had tripped many times before this, or maybe it was that he was on a ridiculous amount of xanax, but he had never felt better. Aiden could feel himself expanding into everything. He suddenly possessed a great, no, godly, understanding of life and how it was connected to everything else. He was hooked in to the very fabric of the universe, as opposed to just treading on top of it like the rest of the pathetic people on earth did. He had to resist the urge to cry out in joy, for the ecstasy he was experiencing. 

“Aiden,” Maxim was sobbing. “Aiden, there’s something else out there.”

“It’s just me, Maxim. Can’t you just feel everything right now!” Aiden lightly brushed a tear off Maxim’s yellow face. “Come on, be a part of everything with me.”

“No, Aiden you don’t understand. I’m so alone. Oh my god it’s so awful Aiden, help me.” Aiden didn’t know how to respond. Maxim was killing his vibe. He needed to elevate his friend. Help him achieve enlightenment along with him. Aiden was a king, but what was a king without his subjects. Aiden was so magnanimous, was so nice, so perfect. And he was just the person to help Maxim with his new found abilities. 

Aiden danced over to where his laptop was covered underneath the sheets. He unwrapped it, and opened up youtube. Aiden found his playlist of popping songs. That was all Maxim needed. Or not. As, at that moment, Maxim’s crying became significantly more audible. Before, Maxim had a few tears coming down his face. Now, he was full on bawling. 

“Aiden I AM SUFFOCATING!” He screamed in agony, as he pulled at his face. “OH MY GOD I AM SO ALONE AND I HAVE. ALWAYS. BEEN. ALONE.” Maxim writhed on the floor, knocking stacks of dishes and whatever else was under the sheets over. He couldn’t stop. Maxim had never experienced any feelings like that in his entire life. He was alone in the universe and the visuals he could see were horrific. Things were distorting in grotesque ways, his skin was melting off, he could see drifting eyes in the patterns on Aiden’s walls. “I am being WATCHED?” He screamed out in horror. “I am SO ALONE AND I AM BEING WATCHED!” Aiden kept trying to vibe to the music he found, but he was slowly growing less amused with Maxim’s antics. He couldn’t relax. 

Aiden grabbed the comforter off of his bed, and began to wrap it around Maxim. Maxim immediately started resisting. Aiden responded by forcing the blanket around the Russian boy with even more intensity. “Maxim, stop!” Finally, he was completely wrapped up. His arms were bound tightly to his sides, the most he could do was writhe a little. At least now he wouldn’t be clawing at his face. Maxim was breathing heavily, and still crying. He seemed to horrified to talk. That was good enough for Aiden. He just wanted to listen to his music and dance a little. It was going to be a good trip, he knew. Maybe he would even learn more about himself. More about his new god-hood that he had just discovered. 

Hours passed by. Aiden was transfixed by the incredibly visuals he was having. Maybe he would do this amount of acid again. He was in so much pleasure. Nothing was better than this, he was being confided in by existence. Existence was thanking him for being so intelligent as to understand what it had tried and failed to impart to so many other people before. Aiden was better than all of them, though. Maxim was still crying in the blankets that Aiden had forced on him. He had a captive audience. Aiden began telling Maxim all the things the universe had told him, he began telling Maxim about how he was god, he was royalty, how far above everyone else he was. He was truly blessed by evolution and nature and the universe. He went on and on about his own greatness. “Please, join me Maxim. You’re the only other person who could understand how I feel”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave kudos if you like the story! <3 It really means a lot


	7. Chapter 7

While Aiden was describing the blessings he had received by the universe, Maxim was getting strangled by it. The void was touching every part of him. The thing that he had sensed on the periphery of his existence before was coming closer. Before, it was millions of miles away. Now it was probably within several hundred miles of him. The dread he could feel was such that he was too afraid to even talk. He may as well have not had any mouth at all as there was no way he communicate the danger he was in to Aiden. Whatever unspeakable horror it was, he was going to know it very soon. And he simply understood that if he came face to face with an eldritch being there was no way he could retain his sanity. He could feel fear ebbing away at him. Before, he felt entirely alone in existence but he knew that soon his very existence might come to an end. The creature was coming to take him away. He just knew. The thing was getting nearer and nearer. Maxim was experiencing several eternities as this occurred. Forevers were passing in absolute fear and horror. 

The boys tripped together for hours. Their brains processed the chemical at similar rates. Aiden kept looking at the watch that his friend Zulfiqar had given to him, and could see time passing in the air. Maxim progressing through eternity while also being stuck in a single second. Eventually, the two were so exhausted by their experiences that they passed out. Aiden had vivid dreams of his new found powers and understanding. Maxim couldn’t escape the horrors on the fringe of his consciousness even in his sleep. 

The boys slept from Friday night to late into Saturday. Maxim met consciousness with a struggle. He was suffocating in something. Everything was black. He felt as though he was stuck in a perpetual night, a void he could never escape.... Until he managed to throw the covers that Aiden had wrapped him in off of himself.

Although the Russian boy was now free of the blankets that had held him for hours, he was not yet rid of the residual anxiety. His mind went through all the dreams that he had while he was tripping. They were horrific. They expanded on his feelings of being alone with some sort of distant horror. He was no longer high but was still possessed with thought loops. He also was experiencing a small amount of HPPD, with the walls of Aiden’s room distorting slightly before his eyes. Maxim tried to stand up, but got caught in the sheets that covered Aiden’s floor. He landed hard on to Aiden and cursed loudly in Russian. 

Aiden struggled against Maxim’s crushing weight and managed to get out from under him. He rubbed his eyes, a slightly confused expression on his face. He seemed to pause for thought, split into a smile, and stood up. “What a beautiful day, Maxim.” He said. He grabbed Maxim by the hand and yanked him up, pulling him into an embrace. “Welcome to godhood, brother. We did it.”

“What are you talking about?” Maxim exclaimed, his breathing picking up. 

“What do you mean? I know you saw it too.”

“Saw what?” Maxim began poking around the room. “I need my keys. I need to go.”

“Why? We need to talk about this, what are we going to do?”

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about.” Maxim managed to find his keys and was slipping into his shoes that he had left at Aiden’s door just the day before.

“What are we going to do with our powers?”

“We don’t fucking have powers. Get out of my way.” Aiden’s large frame was blocking the only exit to his room. Maxim pushed on Aiden a little, just to send the message that he wasn’t messing around. 

“Come one, stop playing. You’re breaking my heart.” Maxim evidently didn’t care that he was breaking Aiden’s heart as he stormed out of Aiden’s room and up the stairs. Aiden’s mother tried to offer him a drink, but he pushed past her as well and headed out of the house. Aiden was still trailing behind, shouting after him. Maxim wanted to plug his ears and ignore his compatriot’s ranting. It was nonsensical. There was nothing to the madness. His heart was beating far too fast and all he wanted to do was go to sleep. 

Maxim unlocked his car and got in, managing to slam it shut before Aiden could grab the door. Aiden pounded on the window, shouting manically. A smile was plastered across his face. “Just think of everything we can do now!” Maxim wanted to scream. He put his car in reverse and just barely managed to avoid hitting his partner in crime. He sped out of Aiden’s neighborhood and towards his home just east of West Valence. He went about ninety all the way there. He had to get back to safety, and just maybe he could find some of that in the solace of his room. 

He threw his car into park when he found his driveway on one of the winding roads of the neighborhood he lived in. Rajit, his neighbor and childhood best friend, spotted him on the way in and waved at him. Maxim didn’t bother to wave back, he needed to get home. He didn’t have time to deal with his old friend, as rude as that sounded. Maxim unlocked the door, pushed past his mother, and then found his bed. Not bothering to take off his shoes, he fell asleep the moment his face touched his pillows. Tomorrow couldn't come soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a like and a comment! <3


	8. Chapter 8

Although Maxim had every intention to wake up on Sunday morning, he didn’t quite manage it. He was awoken by his early Monday alarm, and he would need to get to school within the next forty minutes. Cursing again, he forgot to put on new clothes and wore his chemical and sweat scented shirt and jeans out the door. He could faintly smell the vape juice Aiden and him had shared as well, but it was overpowered by the other, less pleasant smells. He was in such a rush to get out of his house, Maxim neglected to grab his backpack. He didn’t think of it till he was merging onto the highway and at that point it was too late for him. It was then he knew that his bad luck was just starting, and he wasn’t going to be able to sleep off the after effects of the drug like he hoped he could. 

Maxim parked, put money in the meter, and marched towards the math building. He had his first lecture of the day there for combinatorics. He couldn’t afford miss that class, he was already doing poorly. He made it, one minute short of starting time. 

In lecture, he couldn’t pay attention. He was obsessed with the fear that his math abilities might be gone forever. He wanted to pull out a sheet of graph paper and begin working on a complex equation, but he was too scared to even attempt the long string of characters that the typical person couldn’t bear to look at. Just a week ago he had been doing problems like that for fun on his spare time. Now, it was causing his anxiety to rise in his chest along with his heart rate. He just couldn’t do it. He knew his fears were justified, he couldn’t do high math anymore.

He knew what he had to do. He had to go see the professor who had told him math and LSD didn’t mix. He climbed the flights of stairs to the second to top floor of the building he was in. He entered the hall and looked for his old teacher. Finding the door to his room open, Maxim stepped in uninvited. 

“Hi Maxim, why the sudden visit?”

“I need help please.”

“What’s the matter?” The professor looked so concerned. 

“Someone forced me to do LSD and I think I can’t do math anymore.” At that point, Maxim broke out in tears.

“Oh my god, that’s awful!”

“And now I don’t think I can do math anymore!”

“Oh Maxim, I don’t think that’s true. I was only saying all that about LSD because it’s a more dangerous drug than people think and it’s usually the only one math people are interested in. In the nineties I was warning people about molly. Come on now, let’s do a problem together. I’ll show you that you’re not that bad off.” The kind professor began taking papers out of his desk and grabbed some pencils as well. 

Maxim couldn’t stop shaking his head. “No.” He kept repeating. 

“What’s the matter, Maxim?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What?”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better!” Maxim’s face was completely soaked in his tears. The professor was looking more and more concerned the longer the confrontation went on. 

“Oh please, let’s do a problem.” He set the papers out in front of Maxim. “Let me get you started, even.” He began to reach towards Maxim, when Maxim jerked back. Maxim backed up and then sprinted out of the professor’s room. 

On his way out of his professor’s room, he received a text from Loren. She wanted to know what he was up to, and if he would be able to see her that night. She wanted to go to a park as the weather was nice. Maxim looked at the message and left her on seen. He couldn’t bear to see her right now. He didn’t deserve to, now that he couldn’t do school work anymore and with how anxious he was. She saw that he had seen her message, and sent him another text. Maxim didn’t bother to open this one, and instead went to the WV chat. He began typing. 

Maxim Chernov: Guys I need help  
Maxim Chernov: I can’t do math anymore. Drugs have fried my brain. It’s all slush now  
Maxim Chernov: I can’t think straight oh my god  
Maxim Chernov: I’m going to drop out of school. I can’t do math anymore guys I am so fucked  
Celestino Espinoza: @Marina Davis @Alice I think he needs help. Also. Told you  
Marina Davis: Ugh, Maxim are you ok  
Maxim Chernov: No  
Marina Davis: I’m with Alice rn, do you need some support? We’re on South campus doing 499 hw but could come down if you need.  
Maxim Chernov: Please don't  
Alice: Just let us know  
Maxim Chernov: I’m going to start crying omfg

He left the chat. He couldn’t talk to any of them anymore. Not with what he had become. Maxim stepped into a bathroom and sat down at one of the toilets. He put his face into his palms and started bawling. He didn’t care that people using the stalls and the urinals could hear him. He couldn’t stop the flood of tears cascading down his face. He didn’t know how long he was crying, but eventually someone knocked on the door. “Are you ok?” The person asked. He stifled a small sob and responded that he was. The person at the door must have felt like he had done his part in trying to help the crying boy in the bathroom, and left. Maxim managed to stop sobbing at that point. He had to pull himself together. Maybe he wouldn’t go to class for a week and then he would feel better with a break. With that thought he rubbed his red, blotchy face and headed back towards his car. He thought about grabbing comfort food on the way but decided his stomach wouldn’t be able to handle it. Plus, he wasn’t hungry anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment and let me know what you think! It would mean a lot <3


	9. Chapter 9

A week’s break from school ended up becoming a two week break from school. That two week break extended into a month. He missed a midterm. Another month. His friends tried to visit him. He wouldn’t see them. He wasn’t leaving his room. He wasn’t talking to his parents. He refused to go see someone about it. Instead of slowly recovering like he hoped, his sense of impending dread was growing more pronounced. His anxiety about school was worsening. He hadn’t attempted a single math problem in any of the time he lay in bed, softly crying. He couldn’t manage to do it. Slowly, people stopped trying to help him. Alice and Marina had tried to see him twice and failed. Loren had tried about eight and then given up. Celestino showed up once, but he refused to even answer the door when he saw Celestino’s beat up vehicle. Celestino probably just wanted to gloat about how he had been right, about how Maxim wasn’t that smart after all. His math friends didn’t know his address but they compensated by texting him every day till he had removed himself from their group chat and had blocked each of them individually. 

Maxim’s parents were growing tired waiting for their son to go back to school. The semester had passed with Maxim getting a GPA of zero and being suspended. Unlike Elon and Rachel, he didn’t even try to appeal. He was fine with taking a semester -- or even a life -- off of school. Doing high math was now going to be forever beyond his capabilities. Aiden had fucked him so badly. He had fucked himself. His father was beyond furious. This was clear when one day Mr. Chernov approached him just to tell him how much of a waste that Maxim was. Since Maxim was no longer going to do anything useful in his life, he could at the very least make life easier on his parents. Maxim would now have to drive his sister around, in addition to getting a job in order to contribute to the household in some sort of meaningful way. He was also going to have to start going to therapy to get him out of the house.

Maxim couldn’t face being kicked out, so he began looking for jobs. He would either have to work the night shift or he would have to work early mornings since now he would be picking up his little sister from her high school. He applied to Denny’s, Walmart, and a few other places open all hours. And then he realized if he worked at Denny’s he might encounter Lena or Celestino, and at Walmart he risked running into Marina or Jared. None of those seemed pleasant, so it would have to be a job where he didn’t see people. Fast food places generally closed lobbies after a certain hour, and that would be sufficient for the time being. Maybe working would get him back on his feet? He applied to Burger King. McDonalds, and Taco Bell. McDonalds was the first of the three to respond and he quickly scheduled his interview after his father’s repeated pesterings. 

The first week of working at McDonald’s was overwhelming. He hadn’t talked to people at such a capacity in over four months. He operated the drive thru and made food. Many of the people rolling through between midnight and four were either drunk or high. The high people were generally pleasant, and on a few of his better days he would joke or talk to them a little. The drunks were horrible. He couldn’t count the number of times that people fiending for a fish filet at three after they stopped making them had cussed him out. They were picky and impatient. When the clock read between five and seven, the people were generally responsible adults on their commute to work. The older ones were more difficult, but for the most part these weren’t hard customers. 

Maxim was doing alright at his job. A month in, he got a compliment by his boss. He was somewhat satisfied to be doing ok but he could never remove the shame from the back of his head. He once was a literal genius doing complex proofs for fun, attending the best school in the state. Now he was some burger flipper at a fast food joint. It was embarrassing, and he was thankful that he had never encountered one of the people he had once been friends with. He had always thought he was destined for great things but evidently not. 

Of course, him being alright at his job didn’t mean he was without problems. The HPPD he had experienced after tripping had failed to leave. His vision suffered constant distortions. Things warped together, melded, mixed, just to separate again when he gave them a second glance. A few times he had full blown hallucinations. One of the worst was when he became sure an oven at McDonald’s was opening and closing of its own volition. The first time this had happened, he had watched the oven for over an hour in fear that it would open and burn the establishment down. He also heard voices from time to time. They were never anything especially coherent. They were guttural, foreboding. They inspired an amount of anxiety and fear in him. They also only occurred when he was alone, and usually just when it was very late at night. This made them all the more terrifying. Occasionally, they were more understandable than other times, and Maxim did his best to tune them out when he could make out the words they were saying. The trip had given him the terrible understanding of how alone he was, apart from the awful thing he had sensed far away. He didn’t need any more new and terrible understandings about the nature of the world. A small piece of one had already been enough to alter the trajectory of his life. 

It was late on a Tuesday night, probably around eleven when he finally encountered someone he knew at the drive through. Loren’s voice shot through the intercom. “Maxim, are you here?” She asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think


	10. Chapter 10

He contemplated not answering. He was the last person at McDonald’s for the night. He couldn’t just have another coworker run the order, which had been his plan for if something like this ever happened again. He kept dead silent and she asked the same question again, louder, and adding that she KNEW he was. That his father had told her where he was. He knew he couldn’t just ignore her forever, he was being recorded and if his boss went through the tape and saw that he had ignored a customer so blatantly he would be fired. And although he was ashamed at his state, being someone who had dropped out of the University of West Valence to work at a McDonald’s was much better than being someone who had dropped out of the University of West Valence to get fired from a McDonald’s. 

“Uh,” he paused. He was trying to pull some of his old suave-ness back. “What’s good?” He tried to sound casual but his voice cracked. He sounded shaken. 

“It’s me Loren!” She said. “I’ve been trying to get in contact with you forever.”

“I know,” Maxim said, shame clear in his voice. 

“Well I’ve come all this way. I rented a car so that I could come see you.”

“There are better ways to spend a few hundred dollars.” Maxim said. He heard her car move through the intercom system. She rolled up to the payment window. He walked away from the computer to go meet her. 

“I’ve missed you, what happened? You just disappeared on me entirely!”

Maxim hadn’t opened the window yet. Hopefully the glare and the stickers on the window were shielding him from her sight. He had gained forty pounds from overeating McDonalds and laying in bed for months. The grease vats he dealt with every day had caused his acne to flare up again. His hair that he had once kept slicked back was now a shaggy, oily mess. He angled slightly away, turning his face as he opened up the store to her. “I know.”

“I thought we were going to move in together?” She sounded so hurt. “I waited and waited to hear back from you!” Loren clearly was on the verge of tears. “When you stopped talking to me, I thought that I had done something wrong! And then I found out that you had dropped out and I was afraid that something happened.”

“Something did happen.” He said this, and then absolute fear began storing inside of him. Panic. He wanted to run. It was coming and he knew it. Loren needed to go because she didn’t have the same awful understanding of existence that he had. He could vaguely feel the presence he had sensed while tripping once again. Really, the feeling had never truly left but till this point he had managed to bury it with math and work angst. It was now back in full force. 

“Could we talk about it? I thought we had something special. I don’t want this rough patch to be the end of it. You’ll be back at school next semester, we can work through this together.”

“I am over.” Maxim said, shaking his head. 

“Why would you say that?” Now Loren was crying. 

“I can’t explain but I just can’t do it anymore. I am a wreck. I can’t think, I’m anxious all the time. I hear things. Things lurk around, they’re waiting for me Loren.”

“Who’s waiting?” She sounded so confused. 

Maxim’s speech was picking up in pace and tone, growing more manic. “Oh my god I feel it or they or whatever ALL the time Loren. It’s coming for me, I know it’s coming for me. It’s going to come and take me I just feel it. There’s nothing left for me, I can’t keep up like this. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what is and isn’t real and it all feels like there’s nothing I am so sure that that’s all there is for me, nothing. Nothing except whatever I felt that night. I’m so sure.” Maxim kept muttering that he was sure. 

“What? What happened “that night”?”

“I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t understand. If you don’t notice it can pretend it doesn’t notice you, but once you’re sure. It’s coming for me, there’s nothing I can do. Loren.”

“What?” She waited.

He breathed deeply and then started crying again. “Loren, just go.” He was expecting her to put up more of a protest to being asked to leave him be, but his anxiety must have shook her. This was the first time he had managed to verbalize the horror that was laying deep inside him. He hadn’t even shared all of that with his therapist. Something awful was just on the horizon. He had mostly managed to keep it at the periphery of his thoughts, but Loren had brought it into full focus. This awful understanding. What he had sensed during his acid trip had never truly left him. He was alone with it, and it would consume him eventually. It couldn’t let him understand and get away with it. He kept sobbing for fear, and grabbed two buns to cry into. He would have to do the paperwork to write off the waste later on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a like <3


	11. Chapter 11

It was at this point he considered shutting down the McDonald’s. There weren’t likely to be many customers interested in burgers at three in the morning on a weeknight. If he said he felt sick and needed to close early, his boss wouldn’t hold that against him. He needed the money for his parents but maybe he would pick up a shift later on. He was beyond stressed, convinced the thing was going to come for him again. Loren’s fear and sadness was killing him on the inside, what left of him there was to kill. He washed his greasy face in a sink and groaned. 

He should have shut down the shop. He knew that the moment that he heard a loud pounding on the window. It had been four hours since Loren had been there, and no way she would make the drive to see him again. It was someone else. If it were a normal customer, they would have just gone through the drive thru and he would have heard them.

Maxim emerged from the back room to see the empty lobby. Aiden Vah’s white pick up was waiting outside, running. Aiden was pounding on the window. He was waving manically and shouting at him. However, the asian boy’s presence and his behavior wasn’t the most attention grabbing thing about him. Maxim almost forgot about his existential anxiety and inevitable death by mystery distant abyss creature for a second.

“The fuck are you wearing?” Maxim asked. 

Aiden had on vibrant makeup, with coal accenting his slanted eyes. The rest was based in cream color with green and blue swirls and patterns coming off. As Maxim walked towards the window, he could see that they were shapes. They almost looked like Hieroglyphics but Aiden had never been one for history. Or one for school, for that matter. He also had on ridiculous royal clothes that had been taken from all cultures around the world. He had on a dramatic, massive gold and ruby necklace that looked to be somewhere from Africa. He had on a very Roman looking toga that was covered in filth. A red cape lined with fur was tattered to hell, barely hanging onto his broad shoulders. His fingers had at least three rings on them each such that he couldn’t hold his fingers together parallel anymore. He wore some sort of head dress of indeterminate origin, quite possibly of his own invention. Around his waist, there was a cut up ornate half of a kimono that had safety pins all over to keep it on. 

“It’s my new Egg-gyption aesthetic!” He shouted through the glass. “Let me in Maxim. We have so much we need to talk about.”

“Egyptian?” Maxim tried to correct.

“Egg-gyption.” Aiden said a second time. Maxim decided he wasn’t about to argue with the crazy boy on the other side of the window. Afterall, the glass would be easy to break if Aiden got agitated. “I told you before. We’re royalty now. We’re hooked into the fabric.”

“We aren’t fucking hooked into the fabric. I don’t think you get it.” Maxim could feel the anxiety he had earlier stirring. He did NOT want to provoke Aiden with a bunch of anxious rambling like he had Loren. 

“I KNOW YOU SAW IT. YOU WERE THERE. Come on Maxim, didn’t you feel it? We were together and we were everything and the universe told us what we need to do. We’re kings. You just have to ACCEPT THE TRUTH.” The “truth” that Aiden had received was so far removed from what Maxim had experienced, he almost started crying again. “We need to trip again. We’ll learn more. I can’t do it alone, Maxim. I need you to walk the lonely path of godhood with me. You’re the only one who understands me now. We’ll always be soul bonded! I feel it. I know you feel it. Your soul is speaking with me RIGHT NOW.” Aiden pointed to his ear and pressed his colorful face to the window of McDonald’s to better show off his ear. When he was satisfied with how much Maxim had saw, he pulled back leaving streaks of blue, beige, and coal black on the window. Maxim was going to have to clean that now. Maxim could feel panic swelling again. Aiden was hammering on the window again, harder this time. It rattled against the pressure. 

Maxim couldn’t handle it just then. He ran to the back room and hid. He would tell his boss that some weird homeless person was harassing him. He was scared. He wanted Aiden to go away. And then he heard the window shatter. He left out a soft sob. Aiden’s voice was much less muted now, “hello?” He sounded like he was climbing in. 

“Aiden, you need to go.”

“Why? I need you to come. Let’s leave this place behind, join me in god-hood. 

“You need to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“When is later but a more advanced version of now?”

“Aiden.”

“What?”

“Aiden IF YOU DON’T FUCKING LEAVE I AM GOING TO CALL THE FUCKING POLICE ON YOU.” Maxim screamed. This sudden outburst caught Aiden by surprise. He accidentally stepped on a strap from his kimono and fell backwards, his face caught a table on the way down. His makeup was getting more and more smeared. The glyphs he showed up with were now blobs of color mixed into his cream colored foundation now. He was upset. 

“Maxim you’ll come to me, I just know it.” With a huff he climbed out the window, into his car, and drove into the night. At that point, Maxim started wailing and curled up. He needed to clean up, call his boss, call the police. He couldn’t do that just then. He stayed huddled until a coworker came to relieve him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave thoughts!


	12. Chapter 12

The police investigated Aiden breaking the window. Due to his disguise and the fact that he had apparently removed the plate off of his vehicle, they never ended up finding Aiden. Maxim denied knowing him. He could have easily turned the asian boy in, but then he would have had to testified and he really just wanted to leave it in the past. Aiden must have gotten the message as he hadn’t messaged or came to the McDonald’s since. And by Maxim’s account, that was quite alright with him. That wasn’t to say that Maxim had less problems. In fact, the Aiden and Loren incident had really messed him up. 

The anxiety that Loren had provoked in him was coming and going with greater frequency. He would sometimes let off a short burst of incoherent babble to his coworkers or to people on the other side of the drive thru. His manager had to talk about it more than once. He ended up revealing some of his fears about “it coming for him” to his psychiatrist, who ended up prescribing him antipsychotics. He took them. They didn’t help. He might as well have been taking sugar pills for all the change it made in his life. He took this as evidence that his fears weren’t coming from out of his head, but rather were objectively real. 

His paranoia was worse than it had ever been. Maxim wasn’t suffering under the illusion that any person was out to get him. That wouldn’t have been too scary. No, he knew that the thing he had sensed while tripping was slowly approaching. It was circling in. It knew of him, it knew that he knew of it, it was displeased by this. It was a fundamental part of existence, but it was jealous of Maxim’s new knowledge. It was going to come and destroy him in order to correct the record and rebalance the universe. 

The oven that had opened and closed before now talked to him. It was one of the voices he had been carrying with him in his head for a while, and it had finally found a physical manifestation. Late nights at McDonald’s, it whispered horrible nothings at him. He couldn’t decipher what it was trying to say, but the voice clearly didn’t mean him well. It was taunting him. He could occasionally almost make out words. Some of which didn’t seem english. Sometimes, when he could tell what it was saying he was unable to understand what it meant. He could hold its words in his head for just a moment, before they drifted out. He guessed it was his brain’s way of protecting him from further knowledge that he was not meant to have. 

Maxim also began to experiencing queer pains all across his body. He would randomly feel as though a small needle had pierced him and injected him with cold liquid. He didn’t tell his psychiatrist this. If he was trapped in a psych ward, there would be no escape for whatever was coming for him. Everyday, Maxim became more and more convinced of all of this. The frequency of needle pokes increased over time. When they started, it was perhaps once or twice a day. Now, they were nearly constant. Maxim scratched all over his body where he felt them entering his flesh. He was picking at the skin that was hidden underneath his clothes. His back was a mass of scratches and scabs that he himself had inflicted. A few of them oozed pus, ones where he felt stabs more frequently and for longer. It was getting bad. He had a slight fever from the small infections that now littered his body. His time was running out. It would be very soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a like and a comment~!


	13. Chapter 13

The payment window wouldn’t close, one night at two in the morning. The worst of the winter was now over, but it was still a little frigid out. Luckily, Maxim had a jacket that he now needed to wear on account of his scratched and infected body so it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could have been. Still, the window was freaking him out. The oven was babbling, his vision was warping, and he was paranoid about not being able to shut out the outdoors. He tried to fix the window by several means, all of which failing. He thought that maybe if he went outside, he would be able to pop it back into place. He was not going to go outside if he didn’t need to, though. He concluded that he was going to be anxious all shift, and the heating bill for the restaurant was going to be a little higher. It was what it was. Or that was what he tried to tell himself. His anxiety was growing. 

He could feel his heart beating faster than usual in his chest. The needle pokes were so frequent and everywhere that he couldn’t bother to scratch at them any longer. His nails were crusted enough already with bloody scabs and pus. He didn’t want to have to wash them again. His sense of impending doom was getting worse. The window being open was exacerbating his fears that something was coming. Rationally, he knew that if some sort of abomination from the fringes of reality was coming for him that a small window was going to do little to save him. The dumber part of his brain, though, was still trying to seek any amount of additional comfort that he could. He would be much happier if the window was closed. The situation was useless, either way, but in one he was a little bit more comfortable before he was erased from existence. 

Maxim suddenly heard a sharp noise at the intercom. He picked up and asked if “they” would like to order something. Nothing. He looked at the cameras that pointed outside. Nothing. He sighed. Maybe he imagined it. Imagined it like he did with the fucking voice that was coming from the oven again. He stuck his fingers in his ears for a second. He couldn’t hear the whispers. Maybe it really was coming from the oven. Chills and needle pokes went up his back en masse at that second. He jerked hard and bumped into a bunch of fries that were sitting under a heating lamp. They spilled all over the grimy McDonald’s floor. He swore aloud and removed his fingers from his ear. 

As he did so, he heard more noises from coming outside. It was some sort of scraping, squealing noise. It was SO real. How could he be imagining it? For an awful second he contemplated going outside, but his anxiety kicked in and prevented him from taking that course of action. What was out there? He speculated, growing more and more concerned. Maybe tonight would be the night that it came for him after months of waiting. His sense of impending doom wasn’t much worse than it had been the last week and a half, though. Surely if tonight actually was the night he would feel worse off? Who knew. He tried to go back to his job. Maxim walked to the lobby of the McDonald’s and found the broom and the dustpan that was hidden in one of the corners of the building. He had to pick up those fries. He was slowly walking back to behind the counter, when the Russian boy heard a loud noise from the kitchen. 

Maxim did a parkour jump over the counter, forgetting the dustpan in the middle of the lobby. It was well after two in the morning. Customers wouldn’t be allowed inside until six. He had time to deal with the floor fries and the broom later on. He had to figure out what was making such noises. He couldn’t have imagined something so loud. The noises he kept hearing inside his head had never been so loud before. Surely it was real. 

In the back of the store, there was absolutely nothing. A small breeze carried through the gaping window. Maxim giggled nervously. It was a windy night. He guessed the wind had slammed the window or something else inside the room, causing the noise. It was nothing. It was nothing. Nothing. Nada. Maxim reassured himself that he was the only thing at the store, and proceeded back out into the lobby. He was just going to have to tolerate loud noises that night until someone could fix the window the next day. A noise couldn’t hurt him. If an unspeakable horror was on its way to get him, an open window would make absolutely no difference on whether or not it got to him. He was as safe as he could possibly be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a like and a comment <3


	14. Chapter 14

As Maxim ruminated on just how safe he was, a horrible thing made its way across the brick wall of McDonald’s, on the side with the drive thru menu.It traversed the wall of McDonald’s and then climbed onto the roof. It was searching for something. Its face was pressed against the building, sensing. It moved back towards the wall that faced the street. It saw the boy inside just behind the counter, in the kitchen. It needed to enter. The boy inside now knew too much, and it was time to complete its goals. 

The creature walked across the glass and towards the windows. It inspected the first one. Nothing. The window was closed. The creature of course had the power to break glass, but it as uninterested in losing its stealth. It desired to take Maxim from behind. It moved towards the next window, and found that it was open. This was exactly what the horror was looking for. The creature climbed into the building ever so slowly, careful not to make any sort of noise as not to provoke the boy inside. 

As it entered, it lowered itself to the floor and crept towards Maxim. After months of waiting, it had finally navigated the void and was about to breed for the first time in millenia. 

And Maxim was so ripe for its eggs, the creature couldn’t wait to have its needs satiated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter. The next one is the big one! ;)) Leave a like and a comment <3


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, for what you've all been waiting for!

Maxim had forgotten all about the dust pan in the kitchen as he bent over to pick up a fry off the floor. They were big enough that he could just pick them up with his hands. He didn’t really want to leave the window unsupervised. Maybe it wouldn’t stop an eldritch monster from finding him, but it probably would stop a thief or something else. It had been so irresponsible of him to leave the building unattended. That noise he had been spooked before could have easily been someone breaking in, had he been so unlucky. Maxim had checked all the spots in the store before determining that it wasn’t, but still. He wouldn’t be so stupid a second time. He could still learn things. In the small amount of time he had left. 

As he tossed a few of the fallen french fries into the trash, he was suddenly on the floor with the wind knocked out of his lungs. That wasn’t the only thing knocked out of him, as he tried to pick himself up against the tremendous pressure that was now on his back, he found that his front two teeth had been knocked out. They were on the floor amongst dirt, fries, and a puddle of blood that was growing before his eyes. However, the pain of his teeth coming out wasn’t even something that Maxim could properly register. 

The thing that was pinning him to the ground was radiating absolute agony throughout his entire body. The needle pokes he was experiencing before paled in comparison to whatever this was. It felt as though blunt icicles were piercing through him, moving in and out. It was as a dull and deep pain and a sharp, quick pain at the same time. He began screaming. The icy feeling was permeating his entire body, and only getting worse and worse at the point of origin. The worst anxiety he had ever experienced before was nothing compared to this. He wanted to kill himself. There was nothing worse. Death would be better than how much fear he felt at that moment. Maxim screamed and screamed and screamed. He tried to struggle but felt as though he was under millions of tons of something. He could hardly move. He knew then that his time had come. 

Whatever was on top of him began undressing him. He had no idea what was happening, just that whatever it was was about to be very, very awful. All of his worst memories were playing through his head, the pain of them complimenting the physical pain and fear he was experiencing. He kept screaming. Blood coming from his gums was gagging him, and he accidentally inhaled some. Tears were streaming out of his eyes as he began choking. He couldn’t draw air. He wanted to claw at his throat, fight off what was on him, kill himself if he could. It flipped him over. The horror he experienced from having physical contact with it was more than tripled when he stared it in the face. 

As he looked, he felt razor blades slice into his eyes. Fear permeated every cell of his being, at that moment Maxim wished he would be blind so that he would not need to see the horror of what was in front of him. Whatever he had pictured coming for him before did not at all compare to what he was seeing now. It opened its jagged mouth and something tentacle like came out. Before Maxim could stop screaming, it jammed itself inside. He was still choking as it did this, but now instead of just choking on blood he was choking on gore as well. It forced itself deeper and deeper into Maxim’s mouth, going past where his uvula was and down his throat. Its arms reached underneath the boy and lifted his back up off of the ground. Splitting pain was going through Maxim at every point of contact he was making with the being. He felt as though it was consuming him, its aura of horror was poisoning him. The thing in his mouth kept pushing deeper and deeper inside of him, and he felt as it reached his stomach. It pressed up against him, and he saw the bulge that it created. He tried to puke but couldn’t get anything up. He was breathing fiercely through his nose, trying to get oxygen to his lungs despite the blockage that the monster was creating. He felt it release something inside of him, a foul something that was creating horrendous pressure inside of his stomach. He felt like he was going to explode, but it just kept pumping the liquid inside of him. As this process continued, he felt liquid that was not blood begin dripping out of his mouth and his nose. He screamed more and was trying to breath against it. The smell was like nothing he had ever experienced before. It was like corpse and chemical and... something he couldn’t quite place. 

The horror that was happening to his upper half was taking back seat to what was going on behind him. The creature used its tongue to lift him up a little, and Maxim felt something that felt cold and plastic like pressing against his asshole. With no lube, something began forcing its way inside of him. It hurt so horribly. The pain of him stretching out was accompanied with the feeling of needles going in his ass as well. At this point, whatever he was experiencing began to cease processing correctly. He felt as though he was out of screams. Awful liquid was pouring out of his mouth and nose. Whatever was happening, he couldn’t breath around it but somehow it wasn’t killing him. The thing inside his ass was going deeper and deeper. As more of the thing filled him, he could feel it growing thicker and thicker. His ass felt as though it was going to be split in two. A horrible burning sensation was mixing with the inherent chill that the creature had. 

Suddenly the thing in his ass began to pull out. He estimated that there was a solid two feet of something inside of him at that point. After pulling out a little, it pushed back in with more force. It started fucking him hard. The thing inside of his mouth kept him steady while it pounded him from behind. Maxim had thought he had lost his ability to scream. Suddenly, he found it again. He screamed out as he felt liquid (possibly blood?) pouring from his ass now as well as his mouth. At that moment another appendage came from the monster and started rotating him left to right on what was inside of his mouth and asshole. It was making a horrible noise. The voices Maxim had had for months now were screaming things at him. The noises they were making were inhuman. He was so scared. How could a person experience such horror? Memory after awful memory was still flashing through his head. Maxim felt the absolutely worst mental and physical pain a person could possibly have. He had a pounding headache from being in the presence of the creature. What was occuring to him now should not be something a human could feasibly endure without losing sanity. 

At that point, the thing pulled out of his mouth. It had finished depositing foul liquid inside of him. Maxim puked up what he could, and felt as gallons of the horrible substance came out of him. The thing was bouncing him up and down on his appendage. His asshole was gaping more than eight inches in radius for the beast. It lifted Maxim up five feet, and then flipped him upside down. The pressure exerted by his body kept him suspended on the alien invader for about a minute as he slowly slid off. He couldn’t find the energy or mental will power to prevent himself from hitting the ground, hard. He was hoping that with that, that the creature would just kill him. He couldn’t go on. There was no way. His life had to be over, it was too much. He could feel burning and icy liquid draining out of him from both ends. He closed his eyes and whimpered a little. He lay on his back, staring up at the thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're not quite done with the sex scene yet though! Tune in soon! <3 leave a like pls


	16. Chapter 16

It pressed itself flush with Maxim’s body. The horror was about three inches away from him. Four thin tendrils came out of its blackness. Suddenly, they pierced Maxim’s skin. He felt them moving and expanding. Like worms, they spread all across the inside of his body. They moved against the inside of his skin, which looked like it was boiling as they writhed together like hundreds of snakes inside of a pit. His skin stretched as they wriggled. How could something like this even be physically possible. It was absolute agony. The pain of having his ass fucked and his stomach pumped did not compare to hundreds of tendrils moving around inside of him, just beneath his scratched skin. It felt as though parasites were trying to burst through him. This went on a solid few minutes, before the creature slowly pulled itself out of his body again. As it came out with a wet smacking noise, Maxim vomited a second time and thought he was going to pass out from the shock. 

That was not in the horror’s plans, however. It pulled back a little, as if to admire his broken body. Then a spike began to form on its flesh. The spike was clearly pointed, but as long and thin. It snaked towards Maxim’s dick and injected him with something. In spite of the pain that was absolutely everywhere in the boy’s violated body, he got the most throbbing erection of his entire life. With that, it plunged into his urethra. He could feel every centimeter of his cock as the thing slid inside of him. It brought with it the feeling of ice cold razors and awful memories. It accelerated its pace, going deeper and deeper inside of his penis. He cried out again. He begged it to stop, hoping that maybe it would finally end him. He wanted everything to be over. 

Maxim felt a massive pressure at the tip of his cock. He looked down, and saw the thing that was sounding his penis had a big bulge. With sudden horror, Maxim realized. It wasn’t going to kill him. Not yet at least. The thing was breeding him. With the liquid and tentacles, it had been preparing Maxim to be a host to whatever it was now putting inside of him. He tried to jerk back as he felt the bulge slide inside of him. It felt as though he was trying to pass a baby in reverse as it went deeper and deeper in him. He could see his penis bulging against the egg. Before that egg was safely within his body, he felt another pressure begin at the tip of his dick. The last had left him sensitive, and the second egg hurt much more to go inside. 

It wasn’t just two, or three eggs that the thing was going to lay. Maxim felt at least fourteen things enter him. He could feel their weight sitting inside of him. It was possible there were more, he thought that he possibly passed out after the fifth egg that he counted. He had stopped screaming once again. He could barely process the pain he felt as the thing worked its way deeper and deeper inside of him. 

He had no idea on how this was possible, but the creature somehow worked its way from his urethra to out through his mouth. It suspended him once again, impaled on whatever was sounding him. The pressure on his penis when he was lifted up was immense. He didn’t scream this time, but he could feel his eyes rolling backwards as it shook him a few times to make sure its eggs weren’t going to fall out. When it was confident that they were safe inside of their new vessel, it pulled out rapidly again. This time, it was much worse than when it pulled out of his asshole. He fell to the ground a second time, leaking more fluid from his mouth, ass, and penis hole. 

With that, it had done what it came to do. He watched as the creature wobbled its way out through the window and in through the night. It was all over for him. Maxim had the horrible understanding that whatever was in him, was going to kill him. He knew that whatever had just committed an unspeakable atrocity against him would come back in time to find its young. He started sobbing once again. Everything was over. The horrible memories it had conjured were still fresh in his head. His stomach felt full, he felt a heavy weight in his bowels, his asshole was bleeding, his teeth were missing, the needle pains were worse than they had ever been, and Maxim simply couldn’t proceed at that level of suffering. At that point, he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a like! <3


	17. Chapter 17

Maxim was awoken by his angry boss. Luckily, the boss was not angry with him. The footage showed someone breaking in and assaulting Maxim, or, that is what his boss made of the footage. Maxim had to fill out a police report and was sent home for the next few days to recover. 

The doom he had before stuck around. Now it was accompanied by the feeling of growing and shifting inside of his stomach. He knew what he had imagined had actually happened. There is no way his mind could have made something so fucked up. Although he didn’t have any physical evidence of tentacles piercing his skin and writhing around inside of him, or evidence that his asshole had been stretched over a foot, the heavy eggs inside of him were a constant reminder that something awful really had happened to some serious capacity. All of his fears were justified and confirmed.

In spite of this new understanding, the trauma of the event had shocked Maxim just enough that suddenly he had enough energy to go through the facade of being a little bit better. Maybe it was the same force that allowed dying dogs and cats to be good and strong for their owner just one last time before they passed on shortly after. Whatever it was, Maxim was enrolled for the next semester. He had also unblocked some of his easier friends and was beginning to talk to some of them. His parents had pulled him out of therapy and it seemed as though to an outside observer that Maxim was getting at the very least a little better.  
Finally, after a week or two, when he felt the eggs stirring quite a bit, he even texted Loren. They agreed that they would go and get food together soon and catch up. In spite of the sudden end of their romance, she still seemed excited to see him. He was excited to see her for one last time as well. Time was short and he had to make the best of it before the very end. 

As Maxim finished a text conversation agreeing to meet with Loren in three hours, he felt something awful jolt inside of him. He nearly screamed. The eggs had been shifting before but he had never felt something quite like this. He sprinted to the bathroom, the eggs moving more and more as he did. Maxim threw open the door, locked it, and then puked in the toilet. The same liquid that had been pumped into him before cascaded out by the bucket load. The toilet filled so fast from it that Maxim had to flush twice in order not to overflow. After he was done puking, Maxim rolled onto his side. He looked up, towards the light coming out of the window. It was a glorious day. The eggs moved again. He could now feel at least two things slithering inside of him. One bumped an internal organ and he felt an intense burst of pain. 

Maxim couldn’t find the strength to get back up on the toilet as he puked a second time. There was nothing that could be done now. As he blankly stared out the second floor window, a black silhouette blocked out the sun's rays. And with that, Maxim knew. It was all over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end! Thanks so much for reading. I really appreciate all the likes <3\. Leave a comment with your thoughts and story suggestions!


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